The Truth Will Set You Free
by MadFox32
Summary: The night after Phoenix is disbarred, he dreams of an old friend. One-shot.


I don't write much with Feys in it, mostly because my stories usually revolve around an AJ character, and the feys kinda spontaneously combusted like Dahlia's butterflies in AJ. But I had an idea, and I was like what the heck let's roll with this. So if Mia's a little OOC, I'm sorry (but not really):P

I don't own Capcom. Shocker, I know.

I stared at my ceiling in silence. I didn't want to go to bed. I knew that when I woke up, it would be my first day without my badge. My entire life was completely transformed over the course of one day.

When I woke up this morning, I was known as a brilliant young lawyer who would stop at nothing to find the truth.

When I'd wake up tomorrow, I'd be a scumbag ex-lawyer who was only able to win so many of his cases because he forged evidence. Oh, and I'd be a father too, to some little girl who will never see her real father again, because of me.

_How could this happen? What did I do wrong?_

It was that girl. She had given the evidence to me. But why? She couldn't have known that she would send her father away, could she?

All I knew was that if I was going to raise an eight-year-old, I was going to need a job. I leaned over the side of my laptop, which was on top of a pile of papers on my floor. I spent a little while looking at different things to do. _Huh. The Borscht Bowl club. Maybe I could be a waiter or something. _I imagined Maya and Edgeworth coming in and ordering everything on the menu. _On second thought, maybe they'd let me do something else. I clean enough toilets as is, and I'm pretty good at it, if I do say myself._

I closed the lid of my laptop, my eyes attempting to adjust to the darkness. _It's ok. Things may not look so bright now, but you adjust. _Placing my laptop back on top of the stack of papers, I sighed. _What am I going to tell my friends? Oh, yeah, I presented forged evidence and now I don't have a badge anymore! My previous clients are all going to look guilty now. As if Edgeworth didn't have bad enough of a rep before. And Maya's going to look terrible, having been defended by me 3 times, and choosing nobody else. And what about everyone else? Maggey Byrde? Iris? Ema Skye? Oh, Ema! She looked up to me so much…_

_Everyone I know is going to hate me now._

I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. _A lawyer doesn't cry until it's all over. _Well, I wasn't a lawyer anymore, and it was pretty much all over. The only thing I could do with my life was raise a tiny magician girl. I didn't know how to be a father! The only thing I ever knew how to do was to be a lawyer, and I couldn't do that anymore. I felt something warm and wet run down my face. _It's all over. _

The emotions of the day left me drained and empty, and the tears began to fade with my consciousness. Suddenly, I opened my eyes, and found myself surrounded by darkness. I looked around anxiously, wondering where I was. Out in the distance, I saw the silhouette of a figure approaching me. It took a full minute until I could see the face of Mia Fey.

"M-Mia?"

"Hello, Phoenix."

"Mia, I-I'm sorry."

"For what? Losing your badge?"

"Yeah."

"That's not what I'm mad at you for, Phoenix. I'm mad because you've given up."

"What more can I do? I have a little girl to take care of now!"

"Phoenix, you're going to get your badge back."

"How am I supposed to do that? Mia, I want to be a lawyer. But it's just not possible anymore."

"Phoenix, you're looking at this from the wrong angle."

"Where should I look from, Mia? Because every direction I look at myself from, I'm still a disbarred lawyer with no talent outside of pointing my finger and bluffing."

"Instead of asking 'how can I get my badge back', you should be asking 'how did I lose it'."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you didn't forge evidence, did you?"

"No…"

"And an eight-year-old isn't capable of forging evidence, is she?"

"No…"

"Then who forged the evidence?"

"How am I supposed to know?!"

"By investigating, of course." Mia smirked.

"You know who did it, don't you?"

"Of course I do. But this is something you must find out on your own."

"So if I figure out who forged the evidence, how am I supposed to prove myself innocent? It'll just look like I forged evidence to prove myself innocent of fogery!"

"Then I suppose you'll have to have someone else prove you innocent, now won't you?"

"Huh?"

"Phoenix… I have something to show you. Follow me." We walked together for a while, but all I could see was a limitless expanse of darkness. I was about to protest when we finally approached what looked like a window, hanging in mid-air. "Look inside, Phoenix." I peered into the glass. Through it, I could see about 20 people, most of them on computers. There was a large monitor in front of them all, with a display of the moon.

"Are these astronauts?"

"Yes, this is a space station. But that's not important now. Look to your right." Phoenix obeyed, and he saw three people who stood out from the others. One was dressed in a strange yellow dress, with a loose blue tie and a smiley face necklace. Her red hair was in a side ponytail so long that Phoenix wondered how she managed to keep her head upright. Next to her was a man, slightly older, wearing an excessive amount of red. His hair was in two spikes on the top of his head, causing him to resemble a rabbit. His large brown eyes didn't help him look any less like a bunny, really. And finally, there stood a man dressed in blue, with familiar spiky hair.

"That's… Me." I scrutinized myself a little more. "And I have my badge! Mia, who are the two people with me? I don't recognize them from anywhere." Suddenly, all three pairs of eyes widened in surprise, listening to something. After a few seconds, their faces lit up with elation. The girl and the boy high-fived, leaving me standing there with a smile on my face. "We're so happy."

"Phoenix, if you continue to seek the truth, even in disbarment, this will be your future."

"Huh?"

"You see the kid in the red? Right now, he's a sophomore in high school, with hopes of going to law school."

"A sophomore? That means he won't be a lawyer for… 7 years."

"And neither will you."

"Huh?!"

"This is the person who will get you your badge back. But he needs you to guide him, which you won't be able to do unless you've found the truth by then."

"So you're telling me that I have seven years to find the truth behind the forgery, and then I can become a lawyer again?"

"Well, seven years to find the truth, find a job, and raise a daughter."

"Thanks, Mia."

"Wait, you need to remember one more thing."

"Yeah?"

"A lawyer can only cry when it's all over. And it's only over when the truth has been revealed."

"Thank you."

"Oh, Phoenix? I made a bet with Diego that your daughter could beat you in poker. You wouldn't mind playing a game with her, would you?"

Needless to say, Mia won the bet.


End file.
